Stand In Their Shoes
by racle
Summary: AU. Slade is the leader of the Teen Titans, a team of five powerful villains that protect Jump City daily from the assaults of superheroes like Robin.
1. Pilot Episode

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story and can't afford a lawsuit.

Chapter 1

It was another quiet day for the Teen Titans, the protectors of Jump City. The Titans consisted of five superheroes: Plasmus, Jinx, Mammoth, Gizmo, and Slade. Together their powers stopped (and often scared) the formerly prevalent criminals in the city and maintained a relative peace. Several villains had been apprehended and arrested, and few others seemed willing to join the prisoner pool.

Today, the Teen Titans faced a typical battle: Robin, the arch-nemesis of Slade and his team, had sent Speedy to rob yet another bank.

The alarm sounded at Titans Tower as two arrows blew up the door to the bank vault. The guards pointed their guns and fired blue laser blasts, but Speedy was speedier as he ducked the beams and loaded four arrows into his bow. He held his bow sideways and fired one arrow at each of the four guards. Each arrow transformed into a net in mid-flight and trapped a guard. Speedy walked slowly and cautiously into the open bank safe.

"Hold it right there!" Slade's voice sounded behind him. Without warning Speedy whirled around and had fired five arrows at the Titans.

"Titans, go!" shouted Slade, and the Titans scattered, letting the arrows stick in the ground harmlessly. Slade twirled his bowstaff around and ran at Speedy, using the bowstaff to deflect arrows. Gizmo pointed his missiles at Speedy while Jinx prepared her hex spells. Slade brought his bowstaff down over his head and Speedy blocked with his own bow. Over Slade's shoulder Speedy saw Jinx's hexes coming and rolled out of the way, dropping his bow and leaving Slade to be hit by Jinx's hexes. Gizmo's missiles flew around and again rocketed towards Speedy. He tried to grab his bow again but the missiles struck before he could reach his bow, throwing him back into the wall of the vault.

Aching all over, Speedy pushed himself up and sized up the situation. Slade had recovered and had his foot on Speedy's bow. With no other choice he drew an arrow in each hand, twirling them around, and charged. He slid right under Mammoth's legs, jamming an arrow into Mammoth's foot as he passed by; the arrow exploded and Mammoth roared in pain. He hurled the other arrow at Jinx as he jumped back up. She dodged the arrow and fired a pink hex. He reached for his bow to defend himself from the three sludge crabs Plasmus had launched but received a kick to the head from Slade. The sludge crabs overcame him and congealed into a sticky pool, trapping him on the floor.

Slade prepared to finish him with a freeze disk but saw a shadow move in the corner of his eye.

"Robin," he growled angrily, and sprang off to follow the shadow.

It was one of only two things the Titans knew about their mysterious leader: He was obsessed with Robin. Only Robin had the power to keep Slade up late in the evidence room; only Robin could give Slade sleepless nights. Robin was elusive and seemingly invincible.

A few more missiles and hexes later, Speedy was unconscious enough to be taken to jail to join the other villains. The Titans set off to find their leader.

On some rooftop in Jump City, Slade battled his obsession and greatest frustration. Robin evaded all of Slade's kicks, punches, disks, and bowstaffs, seemingly with great ease. They continued to punch and kick at each other until finally, with a lucky punch, Slade scraped off Robin's mask. The computer screen behind the mask revealed the body to be another robot.

"Nice try Slade! You'll never get me. I will never be your apprentice…I will always be out there, waiting to strike again…"

The screen started counting down seconds. Slade scrambled for cover as the Robin robot exploded.

In a large, dark cavern with a large network of slowly spinning gears and levers, Robin was nearly done setting up his next plan. Orderly rows of Robin-bots stood awaiting his command. He was going to use them when the time was right. That time would be when the Titans were distracted, and he intended to create that distraction with his villains.

End Chapter

Author's Note: I am considering doing a "rewrite" of an episode from the show, to see how the episode would have gone if the villains and heroes switched places. I might also just continue with an original storyline. I'm not sure what I'll do yet.


	2. Spoof of Final Exam

Author's Note: A reviewer asked about the dark Robin saying "I will never be your apprentice". In my story, even though the _roles_ of the characters are switched, their _personalities_ remain the same! Thus, even though Slade is a hero in my story, he is still no less obsessed with conquering Robin, and Robin is no less determined never to fall to Slade's side (although we might not really consider that a 'fall', since this is a Dark Robin). Jinx, Mammoth, and Gizmo are exactly the same as they are shown in the Cartoon Network series. Their appearance, personality, and powers are identical except that they fight for justice instead of villainy. Slade is just like he is in the show—mysterious, obsessed with Robin, and his greatest wish is to gain Robin as an apprentice. He serves good rather than evil, but he still has the same martial art/utility belt. Plasmus is human while asleep and a sludge creature when awake. He has all the same powers (sludge/acid spit, split into many parts) as in the show. Robin will play the same role as Slade in the show except that he doesn't aspire to be Slade's master.

Chapter 2

In his dark, gear-filled hideout, Robin sat in his high chair, watching with great interest the video playing on his large theater screen. It was an advertisement from the Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination, offering their services to the ranking criminal mastermind of Jump City.

"The Hive Academy for Extraordinary Young People is proud to present this year's top graduates…" a woman's voice was narrating the video. A photograph was shown of the supposed "graduates": a thin, green-skinned boy with pointed ears, a mysterious girl shrouded in a blue cloak, and a large, tall man covered with blue machinery. Robin looked on with some interest. The first recording of the video showed the half-robot firing a blue beam out of a cannon on his right hand. The beam tore through a training robot, wrecking it completely. Robin decided that he had seen enough.

"Sure, I'll buy it. Send the graduates in!" ordered Robin.

Gizmo was, as often, playing on the GameStation. Jinx was out shopping for groceries, Mammoth was still asleep, and Slade was sitting in his room surrounded by pictures of Robin. As a result, Gizmo started playing by himself, setting record after record on the racing track.

The large purple form of Plasmus slowly walked into the living room—Plasmus was too big to run—and "sat" on the couch next to Gizmo. Plasmus engulfed one of the game controllers in his fluid hand (miraculously not getting any sludge between the buttons) and started a 2-player game with Gizmo. Both of them focused completely on the screen, Gizmo's thumbs and forefingers flying all over his controller. After a while, Gizmo realized something amazing…

Gizmo was losing! He concentrated even harder and drove his short, stubby fingers to their limits, but his car stayed stubbornly behind Plasmus's on the racetrack. A minute later the words "WINNER: PLAYER 2" flashed on the screen. Gizmo slammed his controller down on the table in frustration. The controller cracked open and shorted out. Sparks flew from the metal wires inside the controller as it lay sizzling on the table.

Just then Slade emerged from the corridor into the living room, on one of his rare appearances outside of his room. He looked around, spotted the smashed game controller, and immediately conjectured what had happened.

"So Gizmo, it appears you just lost a game to a living industrial waste pool," observed Slade nonchalantly. Smoke was starting to come out of Gizmo's ears while Plasmus roared with laughter.

"I'm sure he cheated!" screamed Gizmo angrily. "I'm the best videogamer in the world!"

Slade nodded, but the inscrutable mask prevented anyone from observing his facial expression. "That's entirely possible," he said, "Plasmus is human after all, no matter what he looks like in the daytime. You should not have underestimated his intelligence Gizmo."

The door opened. Jinx took a step into the room with several bags of groceries in each hand. Slade glanced at the bags and noted that they contained a very balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, various boxes of cake mix or pasta, and a can of salt. As she took the step through the door, the alarm went off. Soon Gizmo pulled up the video of the attack on their screen. Three very unfamiliar figures were wrecking the pizza parlor downtown.

"I don't think we've seen them before," Jinx commented.

Mammoth arrived in the living room, having been woken by the alarm. He looked at the three villains on the screen. "Who are they?" he asked, puzzled.

"We'll find out soon," Slade replied, and the five Titans ran off towards the alarm.

The patrons of the pizza parlor had long since fled. Cyborg and Beast Boy had already scared off the workers and were now eating pizzas they had each stolen from the kitchen while waiting for the Titans. Raven declined the pizzas and stood beside the counter, tapping her foot out of boredom.

Off to the side, the Titans silently advanced across the street, hoping to catch the three villains off-guard…

BOOM! A mine went off as the Titans stepped into the parlor, hurling all five of them to their feet. When the Titans had gotten up again, they were face-to-face with a large, intimidating, half-robotic teenager. Behind him was a green-skinned, short boy and a blue-cloaked figure.

Mammoth looked puzzled. "Who are you?" he asked.

Beast Boy started: "We are the—"

Raven rolled her eyes. "Why do we have to identify ourselves before we attack?"

"Um…I don't know, because it's fun?" Beast Boy asked hopefully.

"Because our employer told us to," Cyborg stated with finality. He turned back to the Titans. "Anyway, 'We are the Hive, your worst nightmare, and this is attack pattern Alpha.'"

He raised his right arm, which turned into a blue sonic cannon, and fired.


	3. Nice Try

Chapter 3

Robin sat on his high chair in the middle of his dark, gear-filled cavern, overlooking his 200 Robin-bots. Each droid was roughly Robin's size, built with a mask similar to Robin's and was armed with a laser gun on each wrist. Off to the side stood four other robots. Each of these were exactly like Robin, resembling him in every way, with the same yellow cloak, black spiky (fake) hair, white mask, utility belt, green gloves and boots, and a yellow "R" on the chest. Robin sat sewing together what seemed to be a black diving suit.

One of the doors swished open and Starfire hovered in. Robin looked up, drawing a freeze disk from his utility belt before recognizing a friend. He refocused on the plans written on his desk and started thinking again.

"Robin, I am worried for you. You have been staying up late at night for many days now and you—"

Robin cut her off again. "I'm _fine_ Star!" He suppressed a yawn and continued going over the plans for the next heist.

"Please, Robin, you must stop obsessing over this Slade, it is affecting your health!" Starfire continued, the concern evident in her voice.

"I don't care. I'm going to bring down the Teen Titans, no matter what the cost."

"But—"

"Now's not a good time!"

Starfire sighed to herself. Her boss always seemed a workaholic and far too obsessed with bringing down Slade for his own good. Robin was often up nights generating plots and his repeated failures had only been making him more determined to pursue his nemesis. Knowing there was no more hope, she withdrew from the chamber.

The Titans scattered in the face of Cyborg's sonic cannon. Slade, Mammoth, and Jinx made the mistake of dodging left and were promptly buried by a massive swarm of black-glowing tables and chairs. Beast Boy charged as a green rhinoceros at Plasmus, sinking into Plasmus's stomach and getting trapped. Gizmo flew around on his wings, ducking Cyborg's sonic cannon, until suddenly a black halo surrounded him.

Gizmo fired up his rocket pack, but to no avail; the dark energy held him motionless in the air. "What the-- beep !(**Author's Note: This fanfiction is auto-censored**)" Cyborg smiled and took his time to aim his sonic cannon in Gizmo's face before firing. Beast Boy became a T-rex and burst from Plasmus's stomach, smashing him into a puddle of sludge. Eyes opened in the sludge and Plasmus rose back up, unfazed.

The pile of chairs and tables collapsed and Mammoth leaped out, followed by Slade and Jinx. Beast Boy quickly resumed normal form and jumped next to Cyborg. Mammoth charged forward with his fists in the air, dodging a sonic cannon shot, only to punch against a solid black shield. He withdrew his broken hand, roaring in pain. Slade's freeze disks and Jinx's hexes were similarly repelled. Raven stopped the shield to send a beam of black energy at an approaching sludge crab, vaporizing it, while Slade was already drawing an explosive disk. Cyborg quickly fired his sonic cannon at the disk, creating a massive explosion. When the smoke cleared, Slade, Jinx, and Mammoth were lying unconscious a block away.

Plasmus looked around and realized that he was alone. Meanwhile, these images played on the large screen within Robin's headquarters.

"This is going better than I anticipated," he said to himself, looking down at the nearly finished black suit on his table. "Maybe I won't need this after all." And he decided, for the first time in months, to take a break. He left his large, dark chamber and went up to the surface world to take a walk, breathing in the fresh air and sunlight. The Titans wouldn't be anywhere near his location.

Plasmus blasted out massive globs of sludge, which the HIVE agents dodged easily. Then he reshaped into a long river of purple sludge, flowing to Gizmo's unconscious body. Gizmo started floating in the sludge river as it continued rapidly receding down the street away from the three villains. Plasmus retreated down the block, picking up the other Titans as well, and fled.

"What now?" Beast Boy asked. "Should we report back to Robin?"

"In my understanding, 'destroy' means drown the Teen Titans in the ocean," Cyborg said. "We'll have to take the Tower. Come on!"

"_Drown_ them?" Raven asked contemptuously. "They're superheroes! They'll survive a simple drowning! If we don't want them to come back to haunt us, we should hack them to pieces!" Raven demonstrated by stretching out her right hand. A black circle appeared around her hand as she activated her powers, then the circle elongated gradually into a wafer-thin triangular blade with serrated black edges and a sharp point.

"No!" Cyborg and Beast Boy both shouted at the same time in disgust.

"Robin explicitly instructed us _not_ to draw any blood!" Cyborg reminded her. "I know we might not kill them completely, but we have to remember that we're under the media spotlight! There are going to be children watching this battle—we can't make them see things like that!"

"Fine, don't say I didn't warn you…"

"I won't. Now let's move!"

The three HIVE agents walked briskly down the street, the same way Plasmus had gone earlier.

Several blocks away, Robin was walking back to the entrance of his dark, dank hideout.

At Titans Tower, Plasmus brought up all his teammates and dumped them into the living room. Soon enough, they started to come around.

"Where are we?" Mammoth asked, confused.

Gizmo looked around. "Hey, how'd we get back to the Tower?" As the words left his mouth the realization came to him. "Crap, we lost, didn't we!" he screamed. Plasmus nodded.

"We need a plan quickly!" Slade said, "They'll try to hit us while we're still demoralized. They're probably on their way here right now!"

"Why don't we use the brand-new security system?" Jinx asked. "We could hide in the trees next to the Tower, let the HIVE agents come in here…"

Slade nodded eagerly. "Then, while they disable our security, we can sneak up behind them!"

Suddenly there was an explosion from downstairs.

"Everyone, hide quickly!" Slade ordered, then he ran up to the computer console and activated the security system.

Laser guns sprouted from the walls and roof, aiming at the HIVE agents who were entering the lobby. As the guns fired, Cyborg jumped aside, while Beast Boy ducked. Raven produced a black shield that absorbed the lasers. Cyborg aimed his sonic cannon at a laser on one of the wall, when a wave of pink hexes slammed into his chest from above, knocking him back into Raven and knocking them both to the ground. Raven lost her concentration and her shield dissipated. The lasers promptly fired, ejecting both of them from the Tower. Outside, a massive sludge river caught up with them and enveloped them both. Beast Boy was now dodging lasers and pink energy in the form of a green pterodactyl. From a ceiling beam high above, a massive hairy fist, followed by the rest of Mammoth's body, slammed down on the pterodactyl's back. The pterodactyl fell to the ground unconscious and transformed back into Beast Boy.

Robin was disappointed, but not so much as to slam his fist on the table. He returned to his black suit and placed the white skull mask on the head part. Then he began to work on the weapons for the suit. He reached for the small container of zynothium under his desk and, using a medicine dropper, dripped a small amount into an equally small hole in the top of a rectangular device. Then he took up the device and pointed it forward, pressing a button. A sticky red semi-liquid substance shot out and splattered onto the opposite wall, making a neat red "X".

A few hours later, the Headmistress returned.

"I apologize for the failure of our students today. I assure you…"

Robin waved her off. "No apology is necessary," he said. "I am quite satisfied with your students. They certainly do not lack talent. You may leave the discipline to me."

The Headmistress bowed and walked out, the door swishing shut behind her.

Robin drew his communicator from his belt and started to call Aqualad, before he remembered that Aqualad was still in jail. He thought it over and realized that almost all of his subordinates were imprisoned. As a plan slowly formed in his mind, the same plan had already formed in Slade's, and Slade was in fact well on his way to creating a counterplan of his own. Using 90 of his brain was Slade's major advantage over his nemesis; it was why he was the leader of the Teen Titans, as he had been, at some point or another in his life, the leader of every organization he ever joined.

Robin pressed a button on his communicator. A few seconds later Starfire's face appeared on the small screen.

"What is it, friend Robin?" she asked.

"At this point," Slade said to himself in his room in the Titans Tower, "there's several bad guys in jail. The three we caught today, Speedy, Aqualad, the twins…It's probably high time for Robin to think about rescuing his people. Knowing that we've seen that, he'll probably try and distract us first. He'll send a villain somewhere else, and then go down to the jail himself…So the next alarm we get, I'll wait at the jail instead." Slade made up his mind and went off to tell the other Titans.

"I'll send some robots downtown and distract the Titans," Robin said into his communicator. "While they're downtown, you need to break into the jail and get anyone you can free. Bring them all back to my headquarters and wait there. Please, try to be quick!"

End Chapter…


End file.
